THE CONCEPT OF THE AFTERLIFE AS AN IMPERATIVE

Argument for the Life Hereafter ~ 219 ~ G.B. Shaw: We learn from history that we learn nothing from history. We must ask ourselves if this grand show of humanity was staged only in order to present a series of horrors and then come to an end for ever. Our natures obviously rebel against this idea. A deeply rooted sense of justice and fair play in man demands that the fate of our world be different. There must come a time when truth and falsehood are known for what they are, when the oppressors must be called to account and the oppressed must be given due recompense for their sufferings. This desire for justice is so strongly ingrained in human nature that it is an inalienable part of the history of man. This contradiction between man’s nature and the course of events shows that there is a vacuum which demands to be filled. The difference between what should happen and what actually does happen clearly indicates that there is some other stage of life which has yet to emerge. This gap cries out for the time when this world will be brought to completion. I wonder how people agreeing with Hardy’s philosophy come to regard this world as a place of cruelty and oppression and yet fail to